With a whole load of great friends running in both the Brighton and the Paris marathons today, I couldn’t very well not go out for a run.
The sun was out but there was a chill north wind and I suspected that I had made a ‘wrong trousers’ choice as I ran off down the road directly into it… in my shorts. It would have been a good day to run in the woods, but having not run for a while I was curious to see how far I could get and it’s easier to count the miles on my usual pavement run towards Clayton.
In fact it has been six weeks since I last ran (6 miles on the machine) and a further week still since I ran 10 miles, so my 10 mile plan was probably a little ambitious.
When I got to the London Road and the wind was behind me, the temperature in my gear became much more comfortable. Three miles later, as I neared the turn point, I was even starting to get too warm but as soon as I turned back into the wind the temperature plummeted again.
It was clear from the little niggley leg pains from the second mile that I’d not run for a while, but I pushed forward regardless. Today it was definitely my brain pushing my legs on and as I reached 7 miles they felt as if I had completed double that. As I ran back up the road in the last mile they were definitely fading, so it was fortunate that the rest of me felt okay otherwise I would surely have had to walk.
All quite appropriate for a vicarious marathon… and no way could I have completed a full one today.
At 1:39 (and 59:91 seconds) the time wasn’t as bad as I thought, the return leg taking me 53 minutes against the 47 minute outbound one. An overall average of 6mph on the nose.
Still not fast enough to keep up with Mark’s speed over 26.2 miles today. Despite being ill and having completed the 50-mile Paris Ecotrail the other weekend, he still managed an average of 6.16mph , while Phil got a PB in Paris running 6.52mph. I’ve yet to hear about the others but that probably means that they’re recovering… in the pub!